"The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred. Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: ‘You are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together’. THIS IS THE LIBERATION WHICH WE ARE PROCLAIMING."
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas (2002)

Friday, April 17, 2015

Cuba and the Campaign to end the State Sponsors of Terrorism List

"Iran and Cuba, in cooperation with
each other, can bring America to its knees." ... "The U.S. regime is
very weak, and we are witnessing this weakness from close up." - Fidel Castro, University of Tehran, Iran May 10, 2001 quoted in the Agence France Presse

"Our
positions, versions, interpretations are alike, very close. We have
been good friends, we are and will be, and we will be together forever.
Long live Cuba! - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Havana, Cuba, January 12, 2012

There is a campaign underway not only to take Cuba off the list of state sponsors of terrorism but to do away with the list altogether. Ignoring the Castro regime's long history of
not only sponsoring and training terrorists, but also engaging in terrorism,
the drive has been on for years to remove this dictatorship from the
list. However, the end goal is not Cuba but getting rid of the list of state sponsors of terrorism itself.

Stripping states and local governments of their moral authorityCorporate America has also been successful through the courts at eliminating long held rights of states and localities to decide whether or not they want to trade with a country engaged in despicable practices. The anti-apartheid campaign that began at the local and state level with divestment campaigns in the 1970s would not survive legal challenges today. Since 2000 with the Supreme Court decision citing the supremacy clause in Crosby versus National Foreign Trade Council relations or trade with a foreign country are governed by the federal government. State and local governments
can no longer place their own sanctions on foreign regimes unless it is
in accordance with federal government policy. In 2000 the Supreme Court
forced Massachusetts to do business with companies that had done
business with the military junta in Burma. According to constitutional
scholar Sanford Levinson in the Fordham Law Review the Crosby decision compels state and local governments to cooperate with evil.

Brief history of the terror sponsor listCorporate America would like to see the terror sponsor list done away with because it is a unilateral measure that limits their ability to trade with these rogue regimes. USA Engage offers the following historical brief on the list and its concrete impact:

In December 1979, the U.S. Department of State began to designate governments that “have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism,” as state sponsors of terrorism. Designation is formally made by the State Department’s Office of the Coordinator for Counter-terrorism. Designated states are subject to sanctions, including a ban on U.S. arms sales, controls on dual-use items, a prohibition on economic assistance, a requirement that the U.S. oppose loans by international financial institutions, the denial of tax credits to U.S. citizens for income earned in the designated country, and denial of duty-free treatment of exports to the U.S. Designation also requires a license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control for U.S. citizens engaging in financial transactions in a designated country. The Department of Defense is also prohibited from entering into contracts for more than $100,000 with a company controlled by a designated state.

Campaigning to get rid of the whole list would be a tall order, but the strategy appears to have been to whittle down, one by one, these rogue regimes. The Bush administration removed Iraq from the list in 2004, Libya in 2006 and North Korea in 2008.

“He
actively participated in the actions of the burning of Standard Oil;
the bombing of Bejucal Railway Station cable, the cable from the Bus
Station, the explosion of Vento, in the action of the Tunnel and the
explosion of 120 coordinated bombings in Havana, which in a telephone
phone call on this occasion to the chief of police, he told him “Coward,
prepare your ear tonight ... we are going to explode 100 bombs under
your own noses.”

In the case of the ship stopped in Colombia in February 2015, the claim was that the cargo was "grain products" in reality it was"around 100 tonnes of powder, 2.6 million detonators, 99 projectiles and around 3,000 cannon shell." In the the shipment of smuggled weapons sent by Cuba to North Korea, hidden under bags of sugar, what was found, in part, was the following: "A total of 25 standard shipping
containers (16 forty-foot and 9 twenty-foot) and 6 trailers were found,
for a total of about 240 tons of arms and related materiel." The Cubans provided the North Koreans with surface to air missile systems, two MiG 21 jet fighters, and 15 MiG-21 engines, eight 73 mm rocket propelled projectiles
(PG-9/PG-15 anti-tank and OG-9/OG-15 fragmentation projectiles) to be
fired with recoil-less rifles, as well as a single PG-7VR round, a high
explosive antitank tandem charge to penetrate explosive reactive armor,
were also in the shipment.

The dictatorship not only gave assurances that it would not support international terrorism in the future but also claimed that it had never supported terrorism in the past, which is a lie they have often repeated. In 1976 in an Address to the Ministry of the Interior (MININT), Fidel Castro boasted: "If we decide tocarry out terrorism, it is a sure thing we would be efficient. But the mere fact that the Cuban revolution has never implemented terrorism doesnot mean that we renounce it. We would like to issue this warning."

Sanctions and LeverageThe Spanish government had asked the United States, in its talks with the Castro regime, to press for the extradition of ETA terrorists given safe haven in Cuba. This raises an important question: If Spain has had a policy of engagement both political and economic for decades then why does it need to ask the U.S. to intercede on its behalf in these negotiations? The answer is that the terror sponsor list and economic sanctions provide leverage. Finally, sanctions are a nonviolent way to restrict hard currency and limit resources to the dictatorship to limit its mischief which includes sponsoring terrorism. Predicting the aftermathExpect within a year or two, or perhaps sooner, when the case is made to remove the next terror sponsor to hear the argument that the terror sponsor list is useless because North Korea and Cuba are not on it and that it should be gotten rid of. The world will be a more dangerous place with state sponsors of terrorism having more resources to sponsor and carry out acts of terrorism.